On Being Sane in Insane Places Essay
Abnormal psychology is a field that is not defined with clear lines and categories. Instead, the field is operationalized through a blurry gradient scale, riddled with ambiguities. The definition of what constitutes normal is in no way consistent throughout the world (Benedict, 1934). A culture has a social definition of what normal is and consequently, this definition influences the psychiatric determination of normal and abnormal. Consequently, a huge weight and is placed on the discretion of the professionals in determining psychological abnormality. Diagnosis and correct treatment for the insane is a task made extremely difficult by a multitude of factors that span into various areas of uncertainty, such as determination of a definition of insanity, the lack of individual care for patients in mental hospitals, and the stigma of labeling an individual. These important factors have huge implications for the field of abnormal psychology and are grappled with in a very direct way through a study conducted by D.L. Rosenhan in 1973. In 1973 D. L. Rosenhan headed a study that hypothesized about the ability to distinguish the sane from the insane, especially in mental hospitals. If the practiced system used to categorize and separate the psychologically abnormal from the rest of the population, is accurate and truly effective, then professionals would be able to separate the sane from the insane based purely on the individual behaviors and characteristic and despite the context in which the individual is in. Based on this premise, eight pseudopatients who were all free of any detectable psychological abnormality agreed to be admitted into 12 different mental hospitals. The confederate pseudopatients were of varying backgrounds, consisting of three women and five men. The confederates were instructed to act as they normally would during their evaluation to get in to the hospital as well as throughout their entire stay. The only instructed change was during their initial evaluation they told the psychiatrist that they hear a same sex voice say “empty”, “hollow”, and “thud”. This important change, along with their normal histories and personalities lead to all eight being admitted to the mental hospital- seven of those eight with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The researchers placed participants in a wide range of hospitals¬—from the west to east coast, well-funded and staffed to poorly funded and staffed. Also, researchers did not inform the staff or administrators of the hospitals of the presence of a ‘fake’ patient so the pseudopatients could have a ‘typical’ mental hospital experience albeit without having an actual mental disorder. The pseudopatients went into this experiment with the understanding that the only way to be released from the hospital was to convince the staff that they were sane and should be released. The pseudopatients were under the mental hospital’s care from 7-52 days with an average of 19 days. The first alarming fact about our mental health care system illuminated by this study was that the lines between abnormal and normal were so blurred in the mental hospital environment that the trained professionals could not distinguish the sane from …show more content…
On the initial patient interview it seemed as if staff were eager to label the pseudopatients with mental illness and to seamlessly incorporate them into the mental hospital which they had become so used to. The details of patient’s history, while reported normally by the pseudopatient were interpreted by the psychiatrist as confirming to the diagnosis no matter how inconsequential the patient history objectively seemed to be. Their life story was viewed through the lens of a label even before formal diagnosis simply due to the fact that they were being interviewed in a context of a mental hospital. The label that was given to these individuals became important in so many ways. Everything they did and everything they were is automatically seen in relation to their label. This defining component of mental illness stigma makes it incredibly hard to separate self from your mental illness. Individuals fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy in which they behave as they are expected to (Scheff, 1966). In the study, all pseudopatients were labeled immediately upon entering the hospital and were released with their label still looming over them. Once given a label the patient is stuck with it and there seems to be no possibility of overcoming the stigma (Rosenhan,
Abnormal psychology is a field that is not defined with clear lines and categories. Instead, the field is operationalized through a blurry gradient scale, riddled with ambiguities. The definition of what constitutes normal is in no way consistent throughout the world (Benedict, 1934). A culture has a social definition of what normal is and consequently, this definition influences the psychiatric determination of normal and abnormal. Consequently, a huge weight and is placed on the discretion of the professionals in determining psychological abnormality. Diagnosis and correct treatment for the insane is a task made extremely difficult by a multitude of factors that span into various areas of uncertainty, such as determination of a definition of insanity, the lack of individual care for patients in mental hospitals, and the stigma of labeling an individual. These important factors have huge implications for the field of abnormal psychology and are grappled with in a very direct way through a study conducted by D.L. Rosenhan in 1973. In 1973 D. L. Rosenhan headed a study that hypothesized about the ability to distinguish the sane from the insane, especially in mental hospitals. If the practiced system used to categorize and separate the psychologically abnormal from the rest of the population, is accurate and truly effective, then professionals would be able to separate the sane from the insane based purely on the individual behaviors and characteristic and despite the context in which the individual is in. Based on this premise, eight pseudopatients who were all free of any detectable psychological abnormality agreed to be admitted into 12 different mental hospitals. The confederate pseudopatients were of varying backgrounds, consisting of three women and five men. The confederates were instructed to act as they normally would during their evaluation to get in to the hospital as well as throughout their entire stay. The only instructed change was during their initial evaluation they told the psychiatrist that they hear a same sex voice say “empty”, “hollow”, and “thud”. This important change, along with their normal histories and personalities lead to all eight being admitted to the mental hospital- seven of those eight with a diagnosis of schizophrenia. The researchers placed participants in a wide range of hospitals¬—from the west to east coast, well-funded and staffed to poorly funded and staffed. Also, researchers did not inform the staff or administrators of the hospitals of the presence of a ‘fake’ patient so the pseudopatients could have a ‘typical’ mental hospital experience albeit without having an actual mental disorder. The pseudopatients went into this experiment with the understanding that the only way to be released from the hospital was to convince the staff that they were sane and should be released. The pseudopatients were under the mental hospital’s care from 7-52 days with an average of 19 days. The first alarming fact about our mental health care system illuminated by this study was that the lines between abnormal and normal were so blurred in the mental hospital environment that the trained professionals could not distinguish the sane from …show more content…
On the initial patient interview it seemed as if staff were eager to label the pseudopatients with mental illness and to seamlessly incorporate them into the mental hospital which they had become so used to. The details of patient’s history, while reported normally by the pseudopatient were interpreted by the psychiatrist as confirming to the diagnosis no matter how inconsequential the patient history objectively seemed to be. Their life story was viewed through the lens of a label even before formal diagnosis simply due to the fact that they were being interviewed in a context of a mental hospital. The label that was given to these individuals became important in so many ways. Everything they did and everything they were is automatically seen in relation to their label. This defining component of mental illness stigma makes it incredibly hard to separate self from your mental illness. Individuals fall into a self-fulfilling prophecy in which they behave as they are expected to (Scheff, 1966). In the study, all pseudopatients were labeled immediately upon entering the hospital and were released with their label still looming over them. Once given a label the patient is stuck with it and there seems to be no possibility of overcoming the stigma (Rosenhan,